Don't Starve: Giant Edition

 Wii U
Metascore
75

Generally favorable reviews - based on 12 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 12
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 12
  3. Negative: 1 out of 12
  1. Gaming Nexus
    Jul 27, 2015
    85
    Don't Starve: Giant Edition fills a gap you didn't even know the Wii U had. It's a great indie title, but it's also incredibly challenging, which may be a turn off to some. This game doesn't hold your hand, which is great in this day and age.
  2. 3DJuegos
    Jun 22, 2015
    85
    Don’t Starve is an original survival adventure that surprises because of its many game options and its amazing art style.
  3. Nintendo Force Magazine
    Sep 30, 2015
    80
    A working, serviceable port of Klei's charming survival adventure. [Issue #16 – July/August 2015, p.27]
    All this publication's reviews
  5. Multiplayer.it
    Jun 11, 2015
    80
    Don't Starve: Giant Edition comes to Wii U with nice graphics, a great atmosphere and some solid survival mechanics.
  6. Nintendo Life
    Jun 11, 2015
    80
    Within its solid and increasingly arduous heart of survival and exploration, Don't Starve: Giant Edition beats with a personality head and shoulders above the hoard of Minecraft clones out there.
  7. NintendoWorldReport
    Jun 6, 2015
    80
    The world of Don’t Starve is an intriguing one. The haunting graphics and music create a grim, Burton-esque atmosphere that wraps around the whole package rather nicely.
  8. Nintendo Enthusiast
    Jun 3, 2015
    80
    Don’t Starve: Giant Edition is another top-tier indie game for the Wii U.
  9. Digital Chumps
    May 28, 2015
    80
    Don’t Starve is a weird and wonderful jaunt through a purgatorial wilderness. With the Reign of Giants DLC, there’s enough content for even well-seasoned Don’t Starve players. The brutal and unforgiving permadeath mechanic heightens tension and emphasizes player prudence. The lack of stylus and touch controls feels like a real missed opportunity to advantage of the platform’s primary peripheral.

Awards & Rankings

22
#22 Best Wii U Game of 2015
31
#31 Most Discussed Wii U Game of 2015
38
#38 Most Shared Wii U Game of 2015

User Reviews

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User Score
7.7

Generally favorable reviews- based on 20 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 15 out of 20
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 20
  3. Negative: 2 out of 20
  1. ricklongo
    Jun 8, 2015
    9
    Originally released for PC two years ago (and, subsequently, for the Playstation 4 and Vita), Don't Starve is a gem of a game that stands asOriginally released for PC two years ago (and, subsequently, for the Playstation 4 and Vita), Don't Starve is a gem of a game that stands as one of the most unique titles in the Wii U e-Shop. From the get-go, it drops the player into a Tim Burton-esque fantasy wilderness filled with resources, animals, monsters, and what seems like an endless string of open-ended gameplay possibilities. Your goal is to find a way survive, one day at a time, and perhaps some day build your very own one-man empire to rule these lands. Before that, though you'll die. A lot.

    Don't Starve could be described as a hybrid of action-adventure, survival, and real-time strategy. It features a randomly-generated open world, which means that no two games are ever the same. In this way, it reminds me of some of my favorite strategy titles of all time, such as the Civilization and Heroes of Might and Magic series.

    Unlike those games, however, Don't Starve is minutiously crafted to give the player an ever-present feeling of unease and unsafeness. You have to manage three aspects of the character's well-being in order to succeed: hunger, health, and sanity, and that's easier said than done. Days turn to night, by which time you'll have to build a light source (unless you want to be murdered in the dark by an unseen entity). Resources run out and the food you gather spoils over time, meaning you have to frequently search for more. Seasons come and go, each of them bringing new environmental hazards to protect yourself against. There's never a dull moment here, and this helps make the game even more enthralling.

    The best part about the experience is seeing your character make slow progress over time. Eventually you'll have enough resources to start building a base, where you can settle for a slighlty less desperate lifestyle. You can build farms for food, plant groves for logs, herd animals for meat and manure. Of course, you're never truly safe: wild hounds will attack you periodically, and each season has its own boss: giant, free-roaming monsters that could eventually find you and, if you can't lead them elsewhere, wreck everything you've worked so hard to build.

    That, incidentally, is one of the aspects of Don't Starve that could turn off some people: it's ruthless to a fault. The game features permadeath, meaning that, once you die, you're truly dead: your save file is automatically deleted and you have to start over from scratch. As you progress, you'll find ways to overcome that, from craftable items like the meat effigy to randomly-placed structures like the touch stone. Still, the fear of dying is very real all the time, forcing you to micromanage everything and take every decision super carefully. This sort of challenge is obviously not for everyone.

    If it's for you, however, you're truly in for a treat. The game has an incredibly deep crafting system, allowing hunderds of different ways to make items, structures, weapons, and dishes. There are a lot of less obvious mechanics as well, such as feeding meat to the pig-folk that roam the land and turning them into temporary allies. It's all so deep, by the way, that the several Don't Starve wikis available online will prove an invaluable resource if you want to succeed, especially since the in-game information is surprisingly scarce. I get that this is intended to boost the "survival" feel, but it's disappointing that they don't even allow us to take notes while we play. I mean, the gamepad's touchscreen is right there; let us put it to good use. Luckily, a good chunk of the main information will become second nature in no time, allowing you to need less and less outside help with each playthrough.

    All in all, Don't Starve is one of the most addictive experiences I've had in quite a while. As I write this review, I'm 30 hours in, which is incredible for a fifteen-buck e-Shop title. Even more impressive is the fact that I'll surely keep coming back over and over for more playthroughs for as long as my Wii U is connected to my TV. This is the sort of game that can inspire lengthy dedication, and at this point I think I might just be already hooked.

    Rating: 9.0    … Full Review »
  2. headspacej
    Feb 9, 2017
    5
    Nifty premise and cool art style. I even enjoyed the simple exploration...at first. But the lack of guidance meant feeling totally lost theNifty premise and cool art style. I even enjoyed the simple exploration...at first. But the lack of guidance meant feeling totally lost the entire time, and constant permadeaths that didn't feel fair. Worst of all, it took forever to restart the game after dying -- at least if the cycles were quick, you could feel like you were learning and progressing. Deleted this after a couple of hours.… Full Review »
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